


Che Serà Serà

by Anne_Fairchild



Series: Still Waters [2]
Category: Grantchester (TV)
Genre: Angst, Bisexuality, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-04-29
Packaged: 2019-04-29 08:46:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14469084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anne_Fairchild/pseuds/Anne_Fairchild
Summary: Phil remembers. It’s a Good Thing.  Mostly.





	Che Serà Serà

**Author's Note:**

> Whiteout is the first story in my Grantchester-verse, so this won’t make sense unless you read it first. The title of this story refers to a saying, and a sentiment, that is much older than a simple pop song title.

As the weeks passed, Sidney stopped either dreading or anticipating seeing Phil Wilkinson. Life went on at the vicarage and he threw himself back into his work. He let himself find satisfaction in that, and refused to dwell on anything else in his life, or what might be missing from it. If this was his penance for what he’d done to Amanda, he would bear it. Yet despite Geordie, Leonard and Mrs C, despite his renewed connection to his work, there was something missing that he knew wasn’t due to Amanda’s absence.

It made him a little sad not to have any closure; not to _know_. So when he ran into Phil leaving the station as he was meeting Geordie, and Phil asked if he could meet with him for a few minutes the next time he was in Grantchester, he said yes.

Several days later, on an early spring afternoon, Mrs C came to tell him that ‘that young policeman of your Inspector Keating’ was here to see him. Phil looked mortified to find himself in line for a cozy parlor chat. Taking pity, Sidney asked him if he wanted to have a pint at the pub next to the river, and he agreed. Once they’d started in on the beer, the normally taciturn Phil began to reveal what he’d been going through since the accident.

“Bits and pieces about the day of the accident come and go - a few things I actually do remember. The doctors have told me to write them down, to read when I forget them again,” he began. “I don’t show them to anyone,” he assured Sidney. “And sometimes, I dream. Some of the dreams I don’t like remembering, but some - “ Phil put down his glass and looked straight at Sidney.

“Was it just a dream?” he asked bluntly.

“No,” Sidney answered, holding Phil’s gaze for a moment before he looked down at his drink, “it wasn’t.”

At this admission, Phil both turned beet red and smiled slightly, looking away himself. His dimples and the rare smile that wasn’t a smirk reminded Sidney of a schoolboy. It was quite a different view of the man than what most who’d come across him in the line of duty would have seen.

“It’s one of the good dreams. The best dream,” he confessed. “I couldn’t just ask, not until I’d got my courage up. At first I thought I never could, but I knew I had to ask you. If it was just a dream, how could I ever look you in the face again, me thinking about…”

“And if it was one of your nightmares, how could I look at _you_?” Sidney returned.

“Are you sorry?” Phil asked outright.

“Definitely not.” Sidney’s response was quick. “You don’t need to wonder about that.”

“I figure, I must’ve done something. You wouldn’t just…”

“I’m glad to know you think so well of me,” Sidney teased, but Phil wasn’t sure it was teasing.

“No! No, I just didn’t think you would, so I figured it must have been me, and I’ve been so afraid of what you thought, or if you’d tell the Guv.”

“I would never tell him, Phil,” Sidney told him firmly. “And it was a ‘good dream’ for me as well.” He smiled at the detective. “We need to talk.”

“Just talk? ‘There’s an end of it’ like?” Phil asked glumly. “One off? I need to know.” He looked miserable.

“But I _don’t_ know,” Sidney told him. “And we can’t talk here. I’m not sure where we can talk about this, actually.”

“I know a place,” the detective offered. There’s an inn over a pub in St. Ives. Very quiet, nobody from town would go there.”

“Catering discreetly to patrons of certain tastes?” Sidney asked. Phil blushed again. It was, Sidney thought, a very endearing trait.

“Yes it does, I suppose, but it’s not what you think, it’s a decent place. There are other places not so nice, but this one’s all right,” he insisted.

“When?” Sidney was annoyed with himself for the urge to push.

“Wednesday lunch time, if we haven’t got a case on. If that’s not too soon. I don’t know what you’d want,” Phil offered apologetically.

“I don’t know, exactly, what I want either,” Sidney told him. “I don’t have all the answers, Phil. Where is this place exactly?”

“If you like I can…the bus stop three streets over from the station, I could pick you up and drive, about eleven. There are bicycle racks near.”

“Well, I think you’ve got it all sorted out then, Detective Sergeant,” Sidney teased, using Phil’s new title. “Wednesday at eleven it is.” Not at all accustomed to being teased in a benign way, Phil was beginning to have an idea, at least, when Sidney wasn’t entirely serious. He smiled and nodded.

Of course, Sidney found himself curious as to how Phil knew respectable, discreet places where gentlemen could have a room, as well as ‘not so nice’ places. He could make some educated guesses of course. And there was the fact that Phil had assumed they would need a room, and Sidney hadn’t questioned him on it.

Now that Phil had sought him out, Sidney could begin to examine the fact that Phil’s dream was the reason he had wanted to know if the detective remembered that night. He wanted there to be ‘something’ as much as Phil did. But what, exactly? The why of it was also something he couldn’t explain to himself, never mind Phil or anyone else.

Leonard, he thought, probably wouldn’t understand either. He would just think Sidney hadn’t fully acknowledged his preference; he probably wouldn’t understand there might not be a preference for him, and that both sexes attracted him.

 

  
                                                                           ***

 

Phil was nervous; he was driving either too fast or too slow, honked the horn too much on the drive to St Ives, and was sweating on a cool day.

“Pay attention to the road,” Sidney chided him gently, “or you’ll have another accident.” At the tightness that settled round Phil’s mouth, he instantly regretted it. “I’m sorry,” he said, putting a hand over the detective’s.

“No, you’re right,” Phil murmured, settling down somewhat.

They pulled into the pub’s car park at half past eleven.

“Lunch or tea?” Phil asked Sidney.

“Tea, I think - don’t you?”

“Yes, tea.” Phil’s voice was tight with need and frustration. Tea meant they could go to the room now, without sitting through lunch first.

Phil nodded and went inside, while Sidney stuck his head in the pub. It was, as Phil had said, a nice, quiet, nondescript place. In a moment Phil returned, his face distinctly pink after having paid up and retrieved the key. Phil motioned with his head and ascended the stairs. Sidney waited until he was on the landing before he started up.

The room was simply decorated, but had a bit of homely cheer all the same. There was a fireplace that they most likely would not need, Sidney thought, but still he shivered at the technicolor flash he had of the two of them on the hearth rug in front of a winter fire.

“You wanted to talk,” Phil managed to get out, attempting to abide by Sidney’s agenda though his other interest was clearly visible in his trousers.

“Yes, and we will,” Sidney agreed. “Later.” His voice was low and feral. Phil’s guarded brown eyes first widened in surprise at the suddenly predatory vicar, then lit with the promise of unexpectedly uncomplicated gratification.

Within seconds they were all over each other, desperate for the feel of skin on skin. Clothes landed, jumbled together, in a heap as they moved to the bed and fell upon it, rolling together, seeking contact. Question one answered for Sidney; he definitely wanted to have sex…to continue having sex, with Phil.

Sidney was unsure what Phil wanted or expected, but the ‘dream’ had pleased both of them, so there was no urgent need to investigate further at a time when the detective was willing to be guided. It wouldn’t be too long, Sidney imagined, before his younger partner would be comfortable enough to take the lead between them. Musing on that scenario held its own pleasures, but for now he was content if it was awhile yet.

Sidney rolled beneath, kissing and caressing, keeping their bodies firmly connected. It was the unsophisticated, uncomplicated need he felt from Phil that Sidney found himself attracted to and craving. He pulled Phil hard against him, encouraging him to move. The younger man shuddered and clung to him, moving in unconscious rhythmic need.

“Fu..yessss,” Sidney hissed softly. As on the night of the snow storm, the pure, sweating maleness of his partner aroused him in a way very different to what he’d felt when he and Amanda made love. This was primal in its intensity. He bent his knees slightly to encourage more friction. It was somewhat uncomfortable with only the lubrication their bodies provided. He should have thought, Sidney chastised himself. But then, it wasn’t as if he’d been meeting men in hotel rooms lately. Just because he was, he presumed, more experienced than Phil didn’t make him a boy scout.

Phil raised his head. Eyes closed, Sidney heard him spit into his hand, and then again. As soon as Phil touched him, spreading the makeshift lubricant, Sidney groaned and bucked hard up into his hand.

“Do you want me to - ?” Phil questioned, his hand still between them. Sidney was unable to answer, head tossing from side to side, grimacing with need. Instinct and common sense told Phil to just do as he would to please himself. Sidney’s reaction told him that it was the right decision.

Sidney’s breathing grew more ragged, eyes closed tightly in concentration. He came with a groan, and a gasp that was bitten off sharply in presumption of the room’s lack of soundproofing. That control was hard-won. Shaking a bit, he released his grip on Phil as his breathing slowed. As he came back to himself, he brushed the hair out of Phil’s eyes, lightly kneading his shoulder and leaning forward to seek out a wet, open-mouthed kiss.

“Very nice, thank you,” he murmured between kisses. One hand trailed slowly down, fingers carding softly through pale cornsilk pubic hair.  Phil made raw noises of pleasure at Sidney’s fondling, allowing himself to move, seek, and give voice to his feelings.

Phil’s kisses were less demanding than Sidney’s and more exploratory in the emotional sense. Sidney closed his eyes and drank in every touch of lips or hands. This was just what he needed, and what he’d been missing. A frisson of fleeting re-arousal surprised him. He’d thought his body had released him, but his mind wanted this to go on forever, and he was less in control of either than he thought.

Phil, Sidney noted now that he could more or less think again, definitely enjoyed kissing. At the merest suggestion of his tongue, his partner’s mouth opened to him, hungry and begging. As their kisses continued, Sidney felt Phil’s erection growing harder against his thigh. He placed Phil onto his back, leaving soft bites and kisses down his finely muscled torso, taking in the involuntary tightening and release of muscles.

“Bend your knees,” Sidney suggested, lowering his head as he moved them apart. Phil tensed immediately and he stopped. “No,” he soothed. “Not until you want to.” At this assurance, Phil’s hesitation vanished and Sidney bent his head again.

Warm breath wafting lightly over his balls caused a half-fearful, half-hopeful sound to emerge from Phil’s throat. At the touch of first Sidney’s tongue and then his mouth, he gasped and whimpered with unmistakable pleasure.

“Please.”

The word was spoken so wistfully that it melted Sidney’s heart. Attuning himself to Phil’s muted vocalizations and body language, he concentrated on prolonging his pleasure rather than the quick release Phil apparently expected. Judging by his reactions, taking care to please him was not something that anyone else Phil had been with had cared about.

With mouth and hands, Sidney took Phil up and down, back and forth, again and again until he knew that his frustration was greater than his pleasure. Taking Phil into his mouth, he did what he’d learned to do for his comrades and they for him, skillfully and to the point. Unlike with his own arousal and coming, Phil’s eyes never left Sidney’s face. Every emotion was written on his face, and the plea, clearly for more than physical release, was humbling.

Phil’s climax was so loud and unguarded that it caught Sidney slightly by surprise when it came. He exulted in the wild cry, but sought quickly to muffle it with a light, kind hand, mindful of their surroundings, but sad that it should be necessary.

Phil lay boneless against him for several minutes, helpless in his exhaustion. Sidney petted him freely in the silence. Don’t fight it so hard, let go, Sidney wanted to tell him, but didn’t. I won’t hurt you.

When he began to shiver, Sidney got up and pulled back the blankets, maneuvering both himself and Phil underneath. Beneath the encompassing warmth, he pulled Phil into his arms and held him close.

“It’s all right,” he murmured softly, over and over again until the shaking stopped and he felt Phil’s body warm up against his own.

“I always hope it’s quick. If it’s quick then I won’t have to mind so much. Stupid,” Phil admitted against his shoulder.

“You were afraid to come here with me.” It wasn’t a question.

“Of course I was. But it wasn’t just you,” Phil whispered, “it’s everything else.”

“Everything else, as you put it, will be all right with a bit of experience.”

“Experience isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

“Phil. It doesn’t need to be like that.”

“I didn’t know that until now.”

Sidney’s heart ached for him.

“It’s never been about me, only them,” Phil whispered into the darkened room. “Them I had to please. That’s all they ever wanted, nothing else, the nameless ‘Thems’,” he confessed awkwardly. “I hated not being in control. But with you it was different. It is different. And not just a dream any more.”

Of course he hated feeling vulnerable, reflected Sidney. He was young to have achieved the rank he had in the profession he chose. It was dog-eat-dog, and Phil had managed to pull off a tough copper persona very well. It stood to reason he was extremely uncomfortable not calling the shots and being relatively passive, it was everything he didn’t want to appear to be.

“More fool them,” Sidney told him “I’m sorry you haven’t known how it could be.”

“I’m not good at any of this,” Phil sighed in protest.

“I don’t know about that - you certainly gave me pleasure,” Sidney assured him.

“You did for me, I mostly just let you, and took my pleasure from you,” Phil admitted. “I didn’t know how to feel, or if I should feel. If I even wanted to feel,” he sighed.

“Oh, you know the answer to that last,” Sidney half-chided affectionately. He shifted so they looked into each other’s eyes. “You’re not a rent boy, Phil, and I don’t expect you to know what they know. That’s not at all what I want,” Sidney told him earnestly. “Just be yourself. Do what you want to do. Feel what you want to feel. I won’t betray your feelings - they matter to me. You matter to me.”

There were no words at this, but Phil reached up and brushed his fingertips over Sidney’s cheek. Sidney touched his forehead to Phil’s and they lay in companionable silence for a time until Sidney, feeling somewhat like a dentist, asked “How long have you known?” He felt and heard Phil’s deep sigh.

“Maybe two or three years. But doing anything about it…maybe…I don’t know - since I started noticing your curate with the photographer. Then, I couldn’t stop thinking. I just couldn’t stop. I hated them. I hated myself,” he admitted. “I knew then, and I hated what I wanted, too,” he choked out.

“Your wife - does she know?”

“My wife.” Phil’s voice took on a slightly manic quality. “I don’t know. If I didn’t know, would she know? If she did, she never let on. We…she had a miscarriage about a year ago. I couldn’t even comfort her. I felt nothing, and that scared me more than the thought I might have been a father. I hated that in myself, the numbness and the fear,” he revealed. “I think she knows now. I don’t want to think about what I might have said or done to let her know.”

Sidney put a hand to the back of Phil’s neck, squeezing lightly in sympathy.

“We were done after she lost the baby, but she stayed. Neither of us wanted to bother to do anything about being married or not being married. But I started staying away more often. Looking. Hoping. I wasn’t sure what for. Stupid bugger!” Phil muttered. Sidney kissed his forehead.

“Not stupid at all, just alone, and lonely.”

“I don’t know what I thought would happen,” Phil sighed. “But it was just…I felt like a schoolboy. I acted like a schoolboy, trying to please the head boys. It became no more than that - getting them off, then mostly getting myself off after they were gone. They usually didn’t offer, and I couldn’t, or didn’t, ask. There aren’t any guide books,” he whispered sadly, “and you can’t exactly ask someone if they actually like you.”

No, not if you were a policeman who could not be seen anywhere that homosexual men congregated, as well as being shy and inexperienced, Sidney thought.

“The snow storm?” he prompted. Phil didn’t answer. Sidney rolled onto his back bringing Phil with him, lightly cradling Phil’s head to his chest.

“You don’t have to tell me. It’s not some sort of condition to be met between us,” Sidney told him. “But I’ll listen if you want to tell me.” The silence continued, but eventually Phil spoke, his voice low.

“I met someone, and went with them. There were a couple of blokes who saw the meet-up, I suppose. When I was leaving, they came after me in the car park. Taunting me, harassing me,” he explained. “I tried to just walk away, get away from it, but they weren’t having that. I can take care of myself, but there were two of them and I didn’t want anyone coming round to see what there was a row about. They were taking punches, had got me down on the ground,” Phil admitted. “I think they saw my badge under my coat and that scared them - maybe it wasn’t what they thought, maybe I was on a case, I don’t know why they stopped. But before they left they ‘guided’ me into a thorn bush and gave a push for good measure.”

Sidney kissed his hair, bringing both arms firmly around him.

“It took a few minutes to get to the car, and get in. I don’t remember more than starting the engine. I looked in the mirror and saw blood on my face; it was on my hands too. I remember thinking it was everywhere around me, my life - I don’t know,” Phil groaned. “I must have driven back to town and gone beyond. I don’t remember that. No point in going home. I don’t know what I was thinking. I don’t remember getting out of the car. I must have wanted to just run away,” he admitted.

“And who could blame you?” Sidney asked softly.

“Everyone.” There wasn’t really anything to say to that; he just rocked Phil quietly.

 

  
                                                                           ***

 

  
They must have dozed; when Sidney turned to see the cheap alarm clock on the bedside table it was five o’clock. Phil lay heavily against him. He hated to wake him at this point - he wished they could lie together for the rest of the day and night - but it just wasn’t possible, today at any rate.

“Phil. Phil, wake up. Time’s getting on.” He spoke softly, giving Phil’s shoulder a squeeze.

“I know. I hate every minute that ticks off.” Sidney wondered how long he’d been awake, and what he’d been thinking.

“Why don’t we forget tea - It’s just about past anyway. We can get cleaned up and have dinner, here or on the way back to town,” Sidney suggested.

“Yes. Anything for more time. Is there ever enough time?” he asked somewhat bitterly.

“It never seems like there is,” Sidney agreed with the sentiment. He rose from the bed, went to the basin and turned on the tap. When the water was hot he soaped himself and quickly rinsed, aware of Phil’s eyes. When Phil reluctantly swung his legs over the side of the bed, Sidney spoke.

“No, you stay put,” he ordered softly, picking up the other flannel beside the basin, soaking, soaping and wringing it out. He sat on the bed and began to wash his lover, slowly and tenderly.

Speechless, Phil lay back, afraid to break the spell. His eyes shut, then opened again. He couldn’t decide what he wanted to remember more, the sensation, or watching Sidney.

“You’re beautiful,” Sidney told him, enjoying the deep flush he knew would come at his words, this time over Phil’s neck and chest as well. Phil didn’t protest, didn’t say anything to the statement. Sidney did, however, get a glimpse of a half-smile and a bit of the accompanying dimples.

Sidney went back to the basin for a rinse and freshening and sat again, moving the warm flannel over Phil’s body.

“When did you know?” Phil asked him suddenly.

The part of their ‘talk’ that Sidney didn’t really want to have so early on; the part he didn’t have figured out and boxed up yet.

“During the War,” he answered. “Many things were different then - people and things got turned on their heads.”

“Oh.” Phil’s voice went flat. “I know, if you did it during the War you can do it now and it doesn’t mean anything. I’ve heard a lot of that. I didn’t think you - “

“No, it’s not like that with me!” Sidney stopped him, stung by the disappointed bitterness in Phil’s voice.

“I told you - warned you - I don’t have all the answers! But I do know one thing - I don’t need or want to deny being with you to myself or to you, even if I don’t know why I want it - why I need it,” Sidney told him, taking his hand. “I’m not like Leonard - I’m not attracted only to men. I like having sex - making love to both men and women,” he explained. “And I don’t want to do either unless I care about the person.”

“When was the last time you - “

“Ten years ago.”

Sidney had felt Phil start, in anger, to withdraw his hand. When he said that, Phil stopped, and looked at him.

“Ten _years_?” he asked incredulously.

“Yes. It has to mean something to me. Something about you,” he revealed, “struck something in me - and not just my cock.”

“You haven’t been with another man for that long - all this time - and you wanted…me?”

“I think we wanted each other, didn’t we?” Sidney reminded him.

“I’m so lucky,” Phil realized, looking at Sidney with new eyes.

“So am I,” Sidney assured him.

“I’m sor- “he began.

“No, don’t be,” Sidney shushed him. “How can you understand what I don’t? You’ve been feeling sorry enough for things you had no reason to feel sorry for. I don’t want you to feel any kind of sorry about me.”

“And you want to be together again?”

“Yes. I won’t say ‘yes of course’ because we didn’t either of us know before today whether we’d want to. But we - both of us - do. So, yes, very much so. Very.much.so,” Sidney repeated, punctuating each word with a teasing kiss. He had to hold onto himself not to stir up something in the moment that neither of them would be able to stop. It would be so lovely to -

Phil seemed to understand, because while he responded, he too stopped with what control he could muster.

“When? How? It’s impossible,” he sighed, fear and doubt again creeping in.

“Right now, I don’t know,” Sidney admitted. “But we found a way today. We’ll keep finding a way. It will get complicated, but we know we can manage it, so we will. At least,” he told Phil, “until you meet someone else.”

“What?!” Phil frowned, incredulous. “We’ve only just - Everything you’ve just told me - “

“Is all true,” Sidney assured him. “But you’re not going to remain satisfied with an occasional few hours with me, I know that even if you don’t, yet. And while we’re looking for the same thing now, we won’t necessarily be in future,” Sidney reminded him. “I will most likely want a wife to share my life with, and children. You might be transferred; I might be. There are some things in our lives we can’t predict, or completely control.

“I’m not going to disappear on you tomorrow or change my mind, or stop my feelings for you. But it’s only right that we look for more happiness than we can give each other. Life is more than today, or even tomorrow. You’ll be happier,” he urged, “if you enjoy what you have while you have it, and let God and nature take their course. ‘If only’ is the saddest thought. I don’t want it between us. There’s an old saying - che serà serà - what will be, shall be. We don’t want to hurt each other, but what is meant to be, will be all the same,” Sidney told him. “It’s just Life.”

“I am so bloody sick of the way things are instead of the way we want them to be!” Phil exploded, standing and confronting Sidney. “I know that’s childish and stupid and I don’t care!” he ranted. “I don’t care about anything but what we had today. I want it more than anything, and I can’t have it!”

“Which is exactly how I felt about wanting to marry Amanda,” Sidney reminded him. “And you don’t care about this more than you care about being a policeman, do you? So not really ‘more than anything.’

“I know, Phil. I _know_. I love what I do with my life in Grantchester more than I love Amanda, and she has come to hate me for that. Let’s never hate each other for who we are. We can love each other while we’re able, and be grateful for the abilities we have to give to others. Life can be as bleak, or as happy, as we allow it to be. Don’t turn down ‘now’ because we won’t have ‘always.’

Sidney held out his arms, and after a moment’s hesitation, Phil sank into them, his impotent fury at life choking him into ragged, muffled sobs. Darkness descended outside, but neither moved until, much later, the sounds of the pub became loud. Then, in tandem silence, they dressed and went downstairs, touching as long as they could.

 


End file.
